I bought a Suzuki GT250 last fall and haven't done anything with it yet. Last night after work I decided that instead of sitting around watching TV I am going to turn it into a Cafe racer of sorts.
After one night I have a lot of parts stripped off, including the forks out to replace the seals and clean them up a bit.
The plan is to strip off everything unnecessary (which isn't much), mount a small AGM battery and electronics under the seat and build a new wiring harness for it. Along with cleaning everything up and repainting where necessary.
Pictures to come.
Why would you tease us and not lead off with pictures...not cool...
Here are a couple pics of what it looked like before I tore into it.
Oh yea, also planning on rearsets, clubman or clip-on bars, and removing the side covers and finding a smaller oil tank to hide somewhere.
EvanB wrote:
Oh yea, also planning on rearsets, clubman or clip-on bars, and removing the side covers and finding a smaller oil tank to hide somewhere.
If you are doing a standard tail piece for the cafe, perhaps turn it into a tank.
Nice. I want an old two stroke like that.
flountown wrote:
EvanB wrote:
Oh yea, also planning on rearsets, clubman or clip-on bars, and removing the side covers and finding a smaller oil tank to hide somewhere.
If you are doing a standard tail piece for the cafe, perhaps turn it into a tank.
Or plug the oil lines and run premix.
The oil tank on my Yamaha is a bit smaller then that one. But probably not small enough to really hide.
MitchellC wrote:
flountown wrote:
EvanB wrote:
Oh yea, also planning on rearsets, clubman or clip-on bars, and removing the side covers and finding a smaller oil tank to hide somewhere.
If you are doing a standard tail piece for the cafe, perhaps turn it into a tank.
Or plug the oil lines and run premix.
The oil on these gets injected directly to the bottom end so they are happier with the injection.
Cool! Keep us posted on your progress.
If it doesn't already have them, reed valves give a big power boost. Throw on a pair of expansion chambers and it should scoot pretty good. Jemco can make about any kind of pipe you want but they are pricey. DIY is possible also: a long time back a buddy and I cut the original head pipe off of his 185 Suzuki and spliced on the rear section of a Hooker expansion chamber from a trashed 175 Yamaha. I'm sure the purist pipe builders are cringing right now, but it worked great!
Some horrible cell phone shots of the teardown so far. Not a whole lot to see.
Curmudgeon wrote:
Cool! Keep us posted on your progress.
If it doesn't already have them, reed valves give a big power boost. Throw on a pair of expansion chambers and it should scoot pretty good. Jemco can make about any kind of pipe you want but they are pricey. DIY is possible also: a long time back a buddy and I cut the original head pipe off of his 185 Suzuki and spliced on the rear section of a Hooker expansion chamber from a trashed 175 Yamaha. I'm sure the purist pipe builders are cringing right now, but it worked great!
It doesn't have reed valves, I would like some but that requires much more skill than I possess. I plan to keep the engine pretty stock for now. Maybe some expansion chambers, larger carbs, and porting in the future.
The GT250 was actually a pretty fast bike in its day, at least for the 250 class. It's a direct descendant of the X-6 Hustler, with the Ram Air scoop grafted on top of the head in an attempt to keep the pistons from seizing under hard use.
X-6 Hustler. 
I wanted one just because of the name.
This was my previous GT250, it was all stock and quite fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COl9xgGs1Aw
Love those old two strokes, had a RD 350 for street and a GT-750 in a DSR.
